I decided to post about our struggles with infertility on my other blog: A Day in the Life ... one glass at a time. As the initial posts have blossomed into more than a few, here they are all together in their glory.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Let's start the family - No Baby Story Part 1

What’s a couple who have been together for 6 years, married for another two, to do with themselves after all this togetherness? The couplehood of living it up in the city, income from two careers, a house (and mortgage), a couple of vehicles, and the ability to afford a vacation or two during the year. Why, they’re having so much fun why don’t they just add to the party? Let’s create a new improved partay-er of our own! Easy – peasy, right, let’s just hop to it, babymaking is such fun, and the couple, well they’ve been together a while but they’re still young. The time is just perfect.

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We had talked about having children, although not so much while we were dating. There was some reluctance from my bridegroom to discuss anything related to commitment until we were past a certain stage in our relationship. More precisely once we were wed and I had him shackled to the ball and chain. At one point, he wasn’t even sure he wanted children (which I knew was just a cop out, as he’s always been so good with kids). But the point of this isn’t to bash the man. Discussions did take place about having a child, and just before I turned 31, we decided that we would go for it.

We threw caution to the wind, and I chucked those pills that I had been taking with the utmost compliance for so many years. I had always been regular with my periods, so I figured that it would only take a couple of months, at the most. During that initial time though, we weren’t so much as trying for, but “not really doing anything to prevent”. Despite our wish to have a family we were quite nervous - after all, parenthood is a huge deal.

I had a very good idea as to when I would be ovulating, knew the proper timing to get jiggy with it. Remember, I was like clockwork. So although we were trepidatious, we still were doing all the right things. For some reason, we thought that would be enough.

The first six months, well, nothing happened, and we weren’t all that concerned. But after the seventh and then eighth, I started wondering. And really dreading a particular time of the month more than I ever had before. Still, we continued on our path, but with a bit more intent. I started taking my temperature (BBT), mapping out my cycles. Began to do some more reading, research about preparing the body, best foods to make the body baby-ready; the man was forbidden to cycle overly much, all that fun stuff. I had stopped drinking (alcohol) since day one (which to people who really know me, and any regular reader of my blog, shows seriousness of the greatest magnitude!). Even cut back on the caffeine somewhat.

Still, by the time I turned 32 – nada, nothing, zilch.

At my annual physical, my doctor asked me how marriage was going, and whether we had any thoughts about kids. I told her how long we had been trying and that I was starting to get a bit concerned. While she herself didn’t think that it had been overly long, given my age, the one year mark was a standard timepoint when couples should start inquiring. So she gave me a referral to an infertility specialist just in case - because the earliest I could see him was months away.